


The Strength to Speak

by Osiria_Rose



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Light horror elements? I guess?, M/M, One Shot, Unrequited Love, Whoops Calroy's a little crazy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27734869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Osiria_Rose/pseuds/Osiria_Rose
Summary: Sometimes you take the wrong road; all you have to do is turn around and go back the way you came.
Relationships: Calroy Cruller & Donetta Cruller, Calroy Cruller/Amethar Rocks
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	The Strength to Speak

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [You're so damn beautiful](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27709292) by [the_consequences (yuggie_yuggie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuggie_yuggie/pseuds/the_consequences). 



> So I may or may not have read the fic this one is inspired by and then wrote this oneshot immediately after in a single sitting. Also, please, don't envision horrible cake-slice Cal while you read this lmao, this cal is based on [kindlespark's wonderful humanized Cal](https://kindlespark.tumblr.com/post/621071201312342016/anyway-heres-the-evil-cake-man-no-one-look-at-me) so Please take two seconds to check out that link before you read this.

“This is…” Donetta puts a hand on each of his shoulders, giving him a small shake until he looks her in the eye, ensures he devotes his attention solely to her in that _particular_ way he so very rarely can manage. “This is hurting you.” Even now, with her right in front of his face, his mind is somewhere else. It’s always somewhere else, really, scattered to the winds, torn and tangled and wrapped in a cacophony of thoughts and plots and things he’s never said and wants to say and will never muster the strength to admit to the people who matter. 

There’s no use playing dumb. “And what are you referring to?” He does anyway.

Her eyes gleam, broadcasting pity and sorrow. She gives his shoulders a final squeeze and lets go. “You say you want to do this.” It’s not a question, yet he’d need to truly daft not to hear the doubt that saturates her words. It seeps from between her teeth, viscous and cloying, dripping down, down, down, staining her dress and forming a puddle beneath her heels. It pools there. The room tilts and the dark, poisonous ichor follows the downward path, spilling across the tile towards him. He can’t move. _He can’t move_. He blinks and it’s gone. 

Calroy plucks a glass of cola from the table, swirling it thoughtfully.

“It would be a shame to throw away all this work, don’t you think? Twenty-five years, all for nothing…” He takes a sip of the cola and it’s thick enough to choke him. The taste is bitter and entirely wrong. He swallows anyway, looks down and sees nothing but black. It expands, bubbles warningly as it rises up and over the edge of the glass, spilling onto his shaking hand. He can’t move. 

Donetta flinches at the sound. “Calroy! What—” She gasps, carefully takes his hand in hers. “You’re bleeding.”

The glass shatters from the force of his grip, cola splattering all of him and the floor. It’s pale brown and translucent, thinner even than his resolve. _Damn it._ He clenches his fist around the glass shards, thankful for the grounding pain. 

His blood is red.

“Calroy, what happened to you?”

 _Who_ happened, is more like. 

“Nothing at all, Donetta.” He lets her pry his fingers apart. Lets her painstakingly extract each piece of glass. Lets her continue to dwell in the delusion that he would have ever been able to love her. 

“I’ll get the bandages, we must have some somewhere.”

Or maybe she’d never fallen prey to his charm. Felt his cold, empty gaze on the day of their union, perhaps? Heard the blandness of his “I do”? The portrait of them hangs in the parlor. He’s not sure why he hasn’t taken it down since it hurts to look at. 

It’s not that he dislikes her, per se. She’s perceptive, supportive, understanding… He can only hope she doesn’t love him. For all that he can accept that she cares, Calroy isn't sure if his frail shoulders could bear the weight of her love.

Donetta returns with the bandages, as promised, and wraps his hand in them. It’s sloppily done, but he thinks it’ll stay. Calroy flexes his hand, doesn’t wince at the sting.

“Thank you, Donetta. What would I do without you?” He smiles. She doesn’t. 

“I’m worried about you, you know.”

“Don’t be.”

“Cal—”

Calroy cuts her off forcefully, “ _This_ ,” he gestures around, to the room, to her, to himself, “is all temporary. All of this will be over soon.” Turning away from her, he braces himself on the sill of the nearest window, pretends he doesn’t see the darkness creeping upwards from the horizon. It’s two in the afternoon. 

“What do you mean?” She hesitates, whispers, “Have you… received word?”

He doesn’t face her, isn’t sure if he can handle witnessing the frantic sorrow in her eyes.

“Just yesterday, they should be arriving tomorrow.” 

The silence stretches between them for a long moment. 

“You’ll be going to the castle?”

It feels like a goodbye.

“Where else would I go?” 

“You could stay.” There’s something almost desperate in her voice. Almost, not quite, but almost. Maybe she doesn’t love him, after all. “You could stay here, with me.”

It’s tempting. He looks down, sees the black seeping through his bandages.

“You know as well as I do that I don’t have that option.”

“Don’t you?”

The window sill creaks under the force of his grip.

“Don’t…”

“You keep saying you want this.”

“Donetta.” Calroy stresses the word, trying to build a barrier between them with the sound of his voice alone. _Donetta, Donetta, spare me what I already know. Spare me what I desperately don’t want to hear._ If he doesn’t hear it, keeps it tucked away in that dusty little corner of his brain, then it doesn’t have to exist. If he hears her say it then it will stop existing only within his mind, it’ll be _real_. If it’s real he’ll have to face it. 

“You keep saying you don’t have a choice, but you know what I think?”

She may not love him, or maybe she does, but by the Bulb does she _know_ him. She’s also not in the habit of waiting for him, and speaks before he can get another word in edgewise.

“You must think you deserve this. That you’re trapped. By the Pontifex or your own ambitions, I don’t know, but I do know that you can get out of this.

Can he? The bandages are black. Red? Black. He doesn’t think so. 

She thinks too highly of him. He’s dug himself a grave too deep, gotten himself tangled in a web of lies. He’s far, far too tired to even attempt to free himself from the mistakes of his past.

He sighs deeply, looks out onto the darkening horizon.

“You must hold me in high-esteem, Donetta. I’m only one man.”

“Yes, and what an incredibly selfish man that is.”

It’s enough to get him to turn around, look her in the eyes, to _see_ her. The sky is blue, his blood is red, the cola is sweet upon his tongue.

“What?”

“After all you’ve done, you have the audacity to doubt yourself? You’ve gone so far down this path, caused yourself nothing but pain, and after all that you insist on causing yourself even more? You stupid, _selfish_ man.” 

“What do you propose I do?” He knows what she’ll say.

“ _Stay_! I don’t care if it’s with me or with _him_ , just stay… stay _alive_.” The ichor froths at her lips, droplets hitting him while she shouts.

Calroy wants to, he does. Knows he can’t.

“I’ll be leaving in an hour, I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

Tears swim in her eyes. “ _Will_ you be back?”

“I don’t know.” He looks through her. 

Calroy spends the day by the window, waiting for him to return. Knows he will, is afraid he won’t, is afraid he will, knows the Amethar he wants to see never existed in the first place. 

Regardless, when he sees him crest over the bridge… Calroy feels as though the sun has risen for the first time. Calroy soaks in the sight of him for all that it burns. 

He takes the stairs two at a time, bursts through palace doors and sees them, sees _him_. Amethar.

Calroy nearly weeps at the sight of him, can’t resist leaping into his embrace when Amethar smiles that particular smile, the one just for Cal. Calroy laughs through his tears when the first thing Amethar says to him is to compliment his pants.

_I’m so happy you’ve made it home safe, my majesty._

Calroy leads him up, up, up, up through the palace, up the flights of stairs, up until they are on the highest floor, and then takes his hand in a way he never has and pulls him outside to stand on the castle walls. 

Amethar talks the whole way up, Calroy does too, though mostly he’s trying to memorize the sound of the voice he’ll never hear again. He used to find Amethar’s incessant chatter annoying. Or claimed to, at least. It’s not true anymore, if it ever was.

Amethar rests his elbows on the edge of the walls, his back turned. It’s a golden opportunity if there ever was one. He unsheathes the watersteel dagger from where it was hidden in his boot. He tastes the cola that wasn’t cola on his tongue and he’s shaking so hard he almost can’t keep hold of the dagger. Amethar’s still talking but Calroy can hardly hear a thing over the ringing in his ears. He can vaguely make out the low tones of what must be Amethar’s voice. It stops, then starts again, then stops. By this point Calroy knows he’s hesitated far too long because Amethar isn’t talking anymore.

“Cal?” He looks concerned, damn him. How could he? Calroy knows what this looks like. “Are you okay?” Amethar whispers to him, and his voice is sweet enough to make him dizzy with regret. Why is Donetta always right? Calroy has to be the dumbest man alive to ever think he could throw this away. He feels a wetness on his face and realizes he’s crying. 

“Hey… don’t cry, Cal.” Amethar takes the dagger from his limp grasp and places it aside. “It’s okay, everything’s gonna be okay.” He cradles Calroy’s face in his hands, painfully tender, wiping away his tears. It makes Calroy’s heart _ache_ and he only cries harder. What else is there to do, really?

“A-Amethar? Can I… Can I kiss you?” He’s disgusting, a sobbing, cowardly disaster but Amethar doesn’t look surprised. Just… sad. So very sad. 

“Oh, Cal… Anything for you, old friend.” And he leans down, blessing Calroy with a deep, tender press of his lips, pulls away far too soon. It’s everything and nothing like Calroy thought it would be, and he’ll never have it again. 

Calroy buries his face against Amethar’s chest and _sobs_ , embracing him with all his failing strength.

“I’m—I’m _so sorry_. How could I have thought this was—was what I wanted? _Who could want this_!?” he cries, _screams_ , cursing his own hubris, his idiocy, everything about himself that led to this fatal encounter. 

“Cal…” Amethar’s voice, sweet and sad, rumbles in ear. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” But he did. He told Amethar a thousand times, in every way except with words. Maybe that’s just yet another problem of Calroy’s to add to the list, he’s an evasive, secretive bastard who’s never been straight-forward in his life.

“Because you make me weak. You make me into someone I hate and kept me from everything I thought I wanted,” Calroy snarls, gathers up all the tendrils of dwindling hatred inside himself and instills it all into those words. He chokes on another sob, feeling empty.

Amethar wraps his arms around him, pressing a chaste kiss to the top of Calroy’s head. “I’m sorry, Cal. I’m sorry I never noticed your pain.”

Calroy doesn’t answer, _can’t_ , just lets himself be held by the man he was meant to kill, lets himself be soothed by Amethar swaying them slowly back and forth, whispering sweet nothings in his ear that he can’t even begin to comprehend. He stops crying, eventually, and when he does the whole world feels soft, fuzzy at the edges. 

Payment Day, as he now knows, is not soft, but it’s almost a comfort when it’s plunged through his back. Amethar doesn’t let him go through it all. It’s only when he falls completely limp, feels his vision begin to fade, that Amethar gently lowers him to the ground. Sits next to him, holds Calroy’s hands in his.

The sky is blue, his blood is red, the cola is sweet.

Calroy is glad, in a way, that this is how he goes. At least this way, Amethar is the last thing he sees.

And then, everything is black. 

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
